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August 2020

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Navigating Covid-19

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I have the amazing privilege of leading an organisation called The Message Trust in Cape Town.

As we entered 2020, we at The Message were full of hope and optimism for the year ahead. Our keyword for the year was expectant… but the one thing we didn’t expect was Covid-19 and the hard lockdown. Like almost every organisation, we faced uncertainty and huge disruptions to our anticipated operations in 2020… and we needed to make critical adjustments in order to navigate the changing landscape.

As I reflect on the past six months, I can see that God has highlighted three primary ingredients that have been critical in helping us navigate the crisis. I am not necessarily proposing a recipe for success (like all organisations, we still have a long way to go and much to learn), but trying to give some encouragement from what we’ve been learning as we’ve sought to plod our way through 2020.

Firstly, when the hard lockdown hit, the temptation was to panic, make quick decisions and go into survival mode. Clearly, decisive action was required. As an organisation that works in schools, prisons and runs events, the impact of the lockdown was significant. Additionally, the financial realities we were facing was a source of concern. However, panic is never helpful. We intentionally avoided knee-jerk reactions and took some time to breathe and assess our options. Looking back, I would summarise our key activity as reflective prayer. It was time to discern what God was saying. Yes, we got good input from various sources and I was particularly helped by the writings and podcasts of Andy Crouch (click here for one example). But in taking time to prayerfully reflect, we avoided some mistakes that panic would have induced. It seemed absolutely necessary to seek to be discerning what God was saying to us. One passage of Scripture that helped guide us was Isaiah 26:3

You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast [that is, committed and focused on You – in both inclination and character], Because he trusts and takes refuge in You [with hope and confident expectation]. (Amplified Version)

This process of prayerful reflection and discernment led to the second ingredient…

Through the time of reflection and ongoing dialogue with our leadership team and board, the second ingredient was to focus on our core priorities. I must admit that I feel the word pivot has been the most overused word during this crisis. As I reflect on our journey I can’t say we pivoted! Rather, we didn’t focus on the things we couldn’t do, but on the things we could do and that are consistent with our purpose and vision. This took us back to one of our key principles as an organisation – one of which is that sustained transformational change in the life of an individual or community requires deep engagement over a long period of time. Our priorities for the current reality focused on going deep rather than going broad. As a result, we focused on how we could serve and support our staff, believing that we needed to come through this time together. We focused on individual beneficiaries within our programmes and how we could impact young people and their families (e.g. see my previous article). In fact, as I look back I can see how this principle permeated everything we have done over the past few months… from our academy programme to our work with ex-offenders, to our partnership with local churches in tough communities. I’m convinced that understanding this core priority has unified our team and given us renewed purpose and expectancy for what God is doing through us.

Alongside focusing on our priorities, the third ingredient has been equally critical as we have sought to invest in our partnerships. It will probably be no surprise to you that the key element of investing in partnership centres on communication. Throughout the crisis, we have aimed to keep our partners (churches, donors, corporates, NGOs) up to date with the processes we are going through and the activities we’ve undertaken. But what has surprised me is that Covid-19 has also been a seedbed for new partnerships to be formed. As we’ve focused on our priorities, we’ve also identified new opportunities that we need help to address. One example is the massive need to help churches in tough communities who now have so many members unemployed (one church we work with have 85% of their members now unemployed). Initially, we partnered with those churches to provide emergency relief. Then, through ongoing dialogue, we recognised that the only way to provide sustainable support is to develop community-based job creation opportunities. As we are not experts in this field, we started a conversation with another NGO. As with all great relationships, one thing is leading to another and we’re working on some really exciting collaborative initiatives – including what could become the first barista academy exclusively for ex-offenders (it’s one of those God-stories that needs to be explained in another post!)

Reflective prayer. Focus on priorities. Invest in partnerships. As I said… this isn’t pivoting. It’s organisational leadership 101! Perhaps God has used this crisis to bring me back to basics. And even though it’s tough to lead through this season, I remain encouraged that our organisation is playing our part in seeking to provide hope and courage as together was face the uncertain future.

Young people grab towels

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King Solomon famously wrote:

Train a child in the way he should go, And he will not easily depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

But when it comes to leadership development, it seems that we leave it to chance… perhaps buying into the philosophy that leaders are born rather than made. There are some notable exceptions, but it is generally hard to find programmes that intentionally invest in young people as emerging leaders. At best, there are some programmes that offer activities that contribute to leadership growth in young people who are taking on a leadership position (e.g. school prefects). However, we only normally begin offering leadership training and development to young adults when they start exhibiting leadership skills and actively take on leadership responsibility. This seems a bit crazy. Imagine only starting to train a medical doctor once they have the scalpal in their hand!

Grab a Towel proposes that servant leaders are made not born. In fact, given that Christ-centred servant leadership runs contrary to so much of the leadership demonstrated in the 21st century, we may even argue that servant leaders need to be reborn or reprogrammed to change habits and attitudes that are imbibed from our culture. Therefore, it is surely necessary to start working with children and young people and help them adopt an approach to leadership that is formed from studying the ultimate servant leader, Jesus Christ. And, importantly, teaching them to apply those principles to their everyday lives.

That’s exactly what has been taking place in Nyanga, Cape Town. Mkhululi Letstatsi has been investing in young people for a number of years. His passion is to see them become transformational leaders in one of Cape Town’s most notorious communities. During lockdown, Mkhululi began going through the Grab a Towel material with his group of young people, and the initial results have been quite remarkable. But, rather than me writing further on this… you can read the comments from some of the participants below.

What I love about this feedback from the participants is that they are not just sharing new head-knowledge, but are practically applying the hallmarks of servant leadership by helping other people in their community. This is how servant leadership becomes transformational at the grass-roots level.

Also during the lockdown, another group of young adults started studying Grab a Towel via WhatsApp… in fact, the whole Grab a Towel servant leadership course can be facilitated via WhatsApp. I love this creative way of breaking down barriers in order to see the material made accessible to as many people as possible. Please contact me if you want more information on how you could train up young people to become servant leaders. Over the coming months, we want to develop more material that is geared towards training young people and raising up a generation of transformational servant leaders.

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Servant Leadership Personified

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I’m always looking for examples of servant leadership personified… and am excited when I discover the personification in unexpected places.

Clearly, the Bible is a place where I anticipate finding great servant leaders… Jesus, Moses, Paul – to name a few of the prominent go-to people. But I have just been reading the book of Jeremiah and stumbled across an African servant leader who occupies just a handful of verses… but highlights so many qualities of what it means to grab a towel and put other people first.

Intrigued… then read on.

Jeremiah is the kind of guy who wore his heart on his sleeve – and his book oscilates between incredible prophetic proclamations, and intimate details of his life and relationship with God. He had a lot to process. Due to the unpopularity of his message, he was rejected and ridiculed by the religious elite, ostracised by the majority of his own people, and physically persecuted because he refused to compromise on his message.

I’ve read the book of Jeremiah numerous times, and I love how his divine utterances are juxtaposed with his own faith struggles and life challenges – all set against the backdrop of national catastrophe. God had pronounced through Jeremiah (and numerous other Old Testament prophets) that judgement was coming upon Judah at the hands of the Babylonians. The Jews could have chosen to repent from their idolatrous practices and seek the Lord. Instead, they chose to make various alliances in order to try and resist the Babylonian juggernaut.

At the climax of the story, Jerusalem is under siege. In an act of despotic defiance, the leaders of the city persuaded the king to allow them to seize Jeremiah and confine him to a prison – which in this case was an unsanitised cistern in someone’s back yard. The situation looked perilous for Jeremiah… literally stuck in the mud, without food and water, no doubt composing his lamentations (desperate cries) to the Lord for justice (see Lamentations 3:52-66).

This is the background to introduce a bible character whose exploits I’d never previously noticed. An unsung hero who personifies “grab-a-towel” style of servant leadership.

His name was Ebed-Melech. He wasn’t a Jew. He was a Cushite – originally from North-East Africa (some translations say he was an Ethiopian). He was an official in the royal court. His name means Servant/Slave of the King. We don’t know how he came to be there, yet in God’s providence, he was the right man, in the right place, at the right time, with the right heart. He was a man with a different spirit; a man willing to stand against the crowd and follow his conscience in order that justice could prevail. He makes his curtain-call in Jeremiah 38:7. In the next six verses, Ebed-Melech self-sacrificial actions result in Jeremiah being released from the stinky well and returned to the palace court to once more plead the Lord’s case to King Zedekiah (who once more proved too stubborn to listen).

In this short explosion into the biblical narrative, Ebed-Melech demonstrates some incredible qualities of servant leadership, which are starkly contrasted to the other leaders in Jerusalem at the time:

  1. Compassion: Genuine compassion is not simply feeling sorry for someone, but causes one to take action. When Ebed-Melech heard about Jeremiah’s plight he couldn’t stand by and allow an innocent person to die! His conscience provoked him to act.

  2. Advocacy: Servant leaders speak up on behalf of the vulnerable… for those who are not being heard. Ebed-Melech became Jeremiah’s advocate. He could not stand by and allow an unjust act to take place – so went to the king to plead for Jeremiah’s life.

  3. Courage: Whenever I observe a servant leader in action, I’m always struck by the co-existence of humility and courage. Humble people are incredibly courageous… ready to risk their own reputations and even their own lives, in order to serve others. Ebed-Melech had the courage of his convictions to go against the flow and stick his neck out in order to help the prophet of God.

  4. Influence: remarkably,the king listened. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall and I have so many questions about the back story on the relationship between the king, Jeremiah and Ebed-Melek. But what I discern is that Ebed-Melech’s level of integrity enabled him to influence the decision of the king and see an evil act overturned (not unlike Esther who would exert similar influence a century later). Not only that, the king even provided Ebed-Melek with 30 men to help him save Jeremiah and protect him from reprisals. Servant leaders gain influence through the consistency of their godly character.

  5. Humility. Just as quickly as he came on the scene, Ebed-Melech is ushered off the stage. He makes no demands of Jeremiah, seemingly expecting nothing in return. He is satisfied to have served God and followed his conscience. His humility is striking and he had the peace to know that he had done his duty.

However, this is not the conclusion of the story. In the following chapter, just as Jerusalem is about to be finally conquered, Jeremiah sends a reassuring word to Ebed-Melech. God had seen his actions and promises him salvation from the pending disaster (see Jeremiah 39:15-18). The story of Ebed-Melech, therefore, not only personifies servant leadership, but also beautifully demonstrates the impartial saving mercy of God. When the Jews were being punished for their faithlessness, an Ethiopian eunuch is being rescued because he had personified righteous faith in action.

This is the kind of servant leadership the world desperately needs to see. Author and evangelist, Nick Vujcic writes:

To simply say ‘I believe’ in something is not enough. If you want to have an impact in this world, you must put your beliefs and your faith into action… When you put faith into action to sow good seeds by serving others, you tap into a power beyond anything you can imagine. (from Unstoppable: the incredile power of faith in action)

I hope the example of Ebed-Melech will encourage you to grab a towel and show compassionate servant leadership within your context. Let’s put faith in action and self-sacrificially follow Christ through serving others.